![]() It never slows down and never gets easier, yet it does remain an awful lot of fun. It doesn’t finish there though and it comes back round to the Group A cars of the 1990’s, but adds a shedload more horsepower to each that forces 90 degree drifts around every corner. They’ve got pace and grip to spare and only the really brave are going to be pushing the limits of the tracks. Group S rounds out the 1980’s with supercars disguised as offroad racers, and demands learning a new way to drive. ![]() Here is where art of rally imagines what things would have been like if Group B hadn’t been banned. The number of stages in each event increases, and multiple rallies are needed to be raced, with placing on the podium in each year meaning moving on to the next class. Get more experienced and the 1970’s looms with more grunty Group 3 rear wheel drive cars, then up to Group 4 and the monstrous Group B’s in the 1980’s. Start in the 1960’s and the Group 2 cars are easier to control, the length of events shorter, and the restart count more forgiving. Events are broken up by years within the key decades of rally history, and each year made up of a number of different events. Of course, the difficulty can be dropped and the damage effect reduced, and all at the start of each event too, so there’s no locked in requirement for an entire career to run with the same settings. When fighting against the AI there’s no opportunity to let up and take it easy, so pushing is needed at every moment. Germany is an absolute bugger for this with tombstone sized slabs of rock lining the very fast tarmac stages. Repairs after a heavy impact are needed assuming it can limp along to the service area, and it’s easily possible to write the car off on a stage. There might not be sophisticated physical deformation modelling, though there is damage, and the unwary will suffer for it. It sounds a bit… well, abstract… but getting into the zone is where art of rally plays its best, and sometimes it’s when you start to concentrate on what you’re doing that it all starts to go wrong. It’s easy enough to see what’s coming up so focus on that and just let the track flow around the car. There’s not a complexity of bends that demand someone to tell you what they are, they’re either flat out, ease off, brake a bit, or slam on. Again, this can be a bit strange to those used to listening intently for instruction, yet it’s also quite freeing. Dragging the view above means a greater view of the course, and therefore no need to have a co-pilot shouting out the upcoming turns. Fans of being in the cockpit might initially struggle with the transition is there is always a risk that players won’t feel as connected with the car, but that disappears pretty quickly. ![]() Taking an abstract approach with the graphic design – using the key features to define the world rather than layers and layers of detail – and hoisting the view to an offset top-down position, it brings a totally different feel to the genre. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a walkover. You’re not asked to have a mechanical engineering degree to set the car up, or be clairvoyant enough to predict the weather in a few days time, it’s simply get in and drive. It does this without a single official license either, so eschews the personalities associated with the sport and brings in some fantastic homages to the thunderous machines we’ve seen in games before… yet never crosses into copying the exact vehicles. Where art of rally comes in is to act as a guide through the humble roots, up through the increasing popularity, and then on to what could have happened if things hadn’t got too mental in the 1980’s. Too much focus on the technicalities and intricacies of rallying has kept a niche sport in the wheelhouse of its normal fanbase, but arguably hasn’t been able to fully capitalise on the romanticised history of 50 years of competition. With the popularity of sim racing taking off over the last two years, and the officially licensed game becoming increasingly more difficult to play with a pad, there’s clearly a gap in the market for an approachable and accessible title that just wants you to have a good time. Eventually making its appearance on PS4 and PS5, along with all previously released content, Funselektor are defying convention to deliver up an arcade offering that won’t leave hardcore rally fans cold. With a fair amount of jealousy, PlayStation owners have looked on from the sidelines, wondering when it would be their turn to drop the handbrake and spin up the rear wheels of powerful offroad cars in this gorgeously stylised game. It’s been the best part of a year since PC owners got to play art of rally for the first time, and then through the summer Xbox and Switch gamers got to experience the minimalist racer.
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